Gravity
by spindrifting
Summary: Donatello finds that curiosity can have serious backlash when his academic interest in the behaviors of one human girl starts a chain of events that he may not be able to come back from.
1. Perhaps

"There you are."

Donatello leaned forward, staring at the computer monitor intently. On the screen was a grainy, black-and-white image of a store front off Beekman Street. It was a tiny pharmacy and walk-in clinic, set against the backdrop of pubs and parking garages - the kind of mom-and-pop-style business that made New York what it was. It was open 24 hours a day to accommodate patients from every walk of life, which had made it particularly difficult for Donnie to hot wire the outdoor and indoor surveillance system some months before.

Originally, he'd done it because he and his brothers had reason to believe that the clinic was a front for the smuggling of biomedical supplies to the Foot. And while it seemed a popular haunt for known informants to the Foot, as well as some other notable gangsters for the area, nothing particularly suspicious happened there. So it just became another cycling image in the eternal rotation on the corner screen of Donnie's massive spy system.

Until they hired their newest overnight technician in the pharmacy.

Donatello had just glanced at the monitor when it flipped to the 15 second watch of the clinic. Standing outside the main door was a young woman - probably in her very early 20's - chatting with the gangly store owner. While she was pretty enough in profile with her neat dark shirt and slacks and long, waving hair, it wasn't until she turned and looked directly at the camera that he felt the barest of tingles in his stomach.

She had the biggest, most radiant smile he'd ever seen on a person. Most of the people that the brothers encountered on the streets were either too focused on their destination to express much emotion, or they were in distress. And while they'd seen plenty of movies with people smiling and laughing, it had always seemed to Donnie that it was a practiced sort of laughter. Nothing of the sort to send a thrill of excitement through the veins.

Even with April, there was a laid-back kind of acceptance that came from their shared history and mutual reliance. They were like a family with that one particular human girl, but nothing more intimate was expected to come of it. The family of mutants were a singular population among their species, and therefore lacked the opportunities given to other creatures to find companionship. As they grew up, going through the awkwardly hormonal phases of adolescence and into their young adulthood, they'd been bombarded with images of human women on television, in ads and movies, in magazines and on the Internet. Because of this curiosities were piqued, as they would be with any young, healthy males, and any fantasies they had typically included human women.

And while Donatello had approached the idea of human companionship with the same kind of scientific analysis that he did most aspects of his life, he'd never harbored any real hope that he could find "the one," as Mikey always called it. Yes, anatomically speaking, it could happen _physically. _But the likelihood of inspiring the emotions necessary to execute those kinds of behaviors were about the same as the probability of Leo being able to use a kitchen appliance without breaking it.

That is, not at all.

But when that girl turned and looked up, likely to ask about the building's security, he suddenly began to wonder. April was a singular case, with emotional bias towards acceptance of the turtles. She couldn't _really_ be considered a reliable subject on which to base the reaction of a standard human female upon encountering their group. Proper scientific process required an analysis of different variables, a study of behavior prior to meeting as well as afterwards. There needed to be a baseline for comparison. The subject of study had to be random. And most importantly, to draw any kind of conclusion, there had to be repetition.

As the young woman hitched the corners of her mouth up a little higher, an odd, muted fuzz invaded Donnie's brain. It felt as if she was smiling directly at him. He thought, _Perhaps..._

Perhaps she could be an interesting subject of study. She was unknown, had no known history with the Turtles, and her behavior could be observed from afar to set a standard of behavior. She was located in an area with a high potential for Foot traffic, and was therefore a good candidate for potential future meetings.

_Perhaps..._

Then Mikey barged into his lab, demanding that he fix the microwave and jarring him from the moment. He jumped, Mikey laughed, and when Donnie looked back at the screen, the 15 seconds had passed and the screen was filled with an image of a broken-down warehouse by the docks.

"Dude, get your head out of the tech! We need pizza and like ASAP!"

Donnie just looked at him and nodded dumbly. His orange-masked brother suddenly gave him a quizzical look.

"You okay, bro?"

Realizing what he must look like, he snapped his mouth shut and shook his head.

"Yeah. Yeah, Mikey, I'm fine. I'll be out in just a sec to fix the toaster."

"Microwave."

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Michelangelo just shrugged, turned on his heel, disappearing through the porthole just as loudly as he'd come.

That was when Donatello made one of his very rare impulsive decisions.

He pulled up the coding index for the city's surveillance system and transferred the cameras for the Beekman Street Health Clinic from the corner rotation to a permanent side screen. Then he turned from his chair and left the lab before he could think critically about the sudden feeling that he'd just done something incredibly stupid.


	2. Skirmish

He watched her with the kind of interest that he would give to studying a newly salvaged motherboard or the ever-changing street maps of topside New York. Donnie wanted to learn about her, to understand her, and to move on to the next project. What he found, however, is that she was completely unpredictable.

Her first day in, she'd had the night pharmacist, Phil, a man characterized by a jaw so fat that it wobbled every time he frowned - which seemed to be all the time - crying with laughter. This made the technophile both incredibly amused - as it turns out, every part of Phil wobbled when he laughed - and unequivocally agitated that he hadn't thought to install a microphone when he'd rewired the security system.

The first week in, she'd gotten to know just about every regular by face and name, and seemed to have a teasingly sassy attitude that had even the grumpiest old curmudgeons cracking a smile. When she got really involved in telling a story, she had a tendency to knock over plastic bins and pill bottles. The alarmed, and then abashed look she get on her face would always set Donnie to chuckling. Eventually, he just got into the habit of flipping on a side monitor on the nights that she worked and setting to work on whatever project had his attention with her as an entertaining background.

It was on one of these nights that he flipped on the monitor just in time to catch her strolling up the street. Bundled up against the early-autumn chill, she looked up at the camera and poked her tongue out before entering, just as she did every night.

He quirked a smile and mumbled to himself, "There you are."

She tossed her hair, plaited loosely down her back, over her shoulder as she shrugged off her coat and hung it on the drip rack by the door. Donnie wondered idly whether her hair was black or brown. Watching her was like watching an old black-and-white film. No color, no sound. Shell, he didn't even know what the girl's name was and he'd been watching her like a total voyeur for a few weeks.

He didn't tell his brothers about his interest. Leo would just tell him it was a waste of resources for something as silly as a girl that he'd never even speak to. Raph would find every opportunity to make him feel like a complete creep and Mikey would probably tease him mercilessly about liking her or something. Not like any of them would care that his interest was purely academic. He didn't even want to imagine what Master Splinter's response would be.

Donnatello grimaced and turned his attention back to the master cylinder he was trying to repair for the Shellraiser. Raph had been bugging him for days about trying to fix the brake system in the mostly scavenged vehicle. And when Donnie didn't finish a project quick enough for Raph's liking, the bigger terrapin had a tendency to take out his impatience on him in the dojo.

It wasn't until about 1 am that Donnie finally had the part back in working order. Raph was out on patrol, so he'd have to wait a few hours yet to know if it would be good enough to keep the Shellraiser running until they could find a newer one. Finding himself without anything pressing to do, he decided to peruse the surveillance screens for signs of trouble in the city. What he saw made his stomach drop to his feet.

A squadron of Foot were moving up Beekman Street, tucked into the shadows like knives into a sheath. He sat rapt, silently begging them to pass by the little alcove where the clinic sat quiet and undisturbed. They lingered for a moment in alley between the clinic and the neighboring parking garage, but then their leader turned his golden mask toward security camera and cocked his head before burying a shuriken into the lens.

He flipped screens to the interior camera, and watched as a soldier put the teenage cashier at gunpoint, and was on his T-phone in an instant.

Raph's face blinked onto the tiny screen.

"Yo."

"Raph, I need you to get down to the Beekman Street Health Clinic. There's a squad of Foot. Looks like about six. They just entered the building and are taking hostages." He tried to keep the edge of panic out of his voice as the squad leader systematically decimated the security cameras. The last image he saw was of the unnamed girl as she stepped away from her work computer, alarmed and angry. Her mouth were just forming the words 'who are you' when the screen blinked into static.

Raph was talking.

"-on my way. I'm like five minutes out."

Five minutes might be too long, but he didn't have much choice, and they didn't have any backup. Leo and Splinter had gone scavenging deep into the tunnels, where the phones never got reception. And Mikey was on the complete other side of the city, running his half of the patrol. It would take him the better part of half an hour to get there.

Donnie made a decision. "I'll meet you there."

He was out the door before the call was even disconnected.

* * *

><p>Raphael hit the roof with little more than a hollow <em>thunk<em>. His steps were whisper-soft as he approached the roof-access door to the Clinic. Within seconds, he'd broken the lock and slipped inside, a dark green shadow in the night.

He hit the store room first. It was a poorly organized labyrinth of boxes stacked high and filled to the brim with vials, syringes, first aid supplies and over-the-counter medication. He had to creep and squeeze through at a crawl that set his teeth on edge in order to avoid sending the towers toppling down. The last thing he needed to do was to slip up and attract the attention of the whole Foot squad.

Donnie had been panicking, he thought. The purple-banded nerd approached most problems with an almost emotionless kind of detachment, simply thinking through the steps of any challenge and finding a solution. Six Foot weren't really a big deal. Hell, any one of the turtles could take out that many on their own. Even with hostages in the balance. Raph didn't know what his brother had seen on his window of monitors in that claustrophobic little cave of his to put the sharp lines of worry around his eyes when he called, but it was enough to set his nerves on end.

He picked his way across the clutter of the store room towards the entry door. It was a swinging door made of heavy plastic, with a clear pane at about the height of his waist. Barely peeking around the rim of the window, Raph could see one Foot with his gun leveled at the chest of a quivering teenage boy and another with the barrel pressed flat against the back of an elderly woman where she was curled up on the ground in an aisle lined with oral care products.

So where were the other four?

On the other side of the store room door, he could see the breaker box. All he needed to do was to sneak out the door without being noticed and hit the main switch. He'd have the jump on 'em.

He inched the door open -

And a siren screamed.

"Shit!"

He scrambled for the breaker box and nearly ripped the little metal door off its hinges right as two Foot appeared from between the aisles and opened fire.

Raph jumped away from the box and turned his back to the gun-fire, bullets ricocheting off in every direction. One of the soldiers yelped and staggered, hit by his own ammunition, as the rest buried themselves into the walls. Raph ran at the wall by the store room door, planted his feet and launched backward into the air, flipping over the two stunned and injured Foot. With a snap, he landed a heavy kick to the back of one, throwing him through a shelving unit full of batteries. He cracked the other, already on the ground clinging to his bloodied thigh, across the neck with an elbow. He crumpled. Somewhere behind him, the teenage cashier started to scream, but was cut off sharp and sudden.

Whirling around, he saw the gawky teen fall, his jaw broken by the butt of an small gattling gun. The Foot holding it was built like the Hulk in miniature, and he weilded the gat like it was made of paper. The behemoth turned the barrel on Raphael, the bullets barely nicking the edge of his shell as he tumbled into a stand of cough medicine. The thin plastic bottles crushed under his weight, covering him in sticky liquid that smelled like a gut-turning combination of cherry and rubbing alcohol.

Another Foot soldier dove at him, trying to grab his legs. But gloved hands slipped across red liquid and smooth scales and the soldier lost his grip. Raph took the opportunity to plant his two-toed foot under his chin and launched him into dropped ceiling. He disappeared into the cavernous space, shattering the dry wall tile and sending a rain of gypsum and foam onto a couple who were cowering next to a rack of condoms and lubricant.

Raph was suddenly very happy that he hadn't jumped the other direction.

"Nice shot."

Donnie appeared at his side with a grim smile.

"I cleared the two who were guarding the front door. How many did you take?" He extended his hand to help his brother up.

Raph accepted the hand and grunted, "Three. But we've still got the 'roid machine over there to worry about."

Donatello suddenly crinkled his nose and wiped his slick hand across the leather belt holding his gadets.

"What are you covered in?" he demanded. "You smell like Robitussin."

Before he could snap back, the monster of a Foot stepped around the corner, leveling the rotating barrel of his gun at the brothers. They both flipped backward over adjacent aisles as the rest of the cough and cold section was obliterated. As powerful as the weapon was, it was difficult to control and overheated quickly, leaving the barrels steaming as it jammed up.

Suddenly, Donnie got an idea.

"Hey Raph, you remember how David took out Goliath?"

Raph grinned from where he was crouched next to a demolished pile of baby wipes. "Ha! Hell yeah I do!"

They met in the center of the lane and locked wrists.

"With a slingshot!"

With a bone-wrenching jerk, Donatello was flying across the ground on his shell. He tucked his head and arms as he spun, and felt the crack of tibias as he collided with the brute's legs, throwing him into the air. Raph met him in the air, planting both feet into his chest and burying him a foot deep into a wall of feminine products.

He helped Donnie up from where he kneeled dizzily on the floor.

"The bigger they are-"

"The harder they fall," Donnie finished. They high-three-ed. But their moment was cut short.

"Ms. Sinclaire, _stay down_!" The shout was shrill and desperate. There was a loud crack and a cacophony of shouts.

"Stop! There's no need for that!" An older male voice.

"Jesus! Stop it! You're gonna kill her!" A young woman.

The last voice came as a hiss. "If you move one more time, I'm going to kill _you._"

The brother's crouched down low and picked their way over debris in complete silence as they moved toward the back of the store, where the pharmacy lay.

As they approached, Donnie felt the muscles across his shoulders tense and Raph swore quietly under his breath.

Phil was standing behind the kiosk, hands on his head, eyes trained on a Foot soldier with his foot pressed into the throat of a middle-aged woman. Her face was turning purple as she clawed futilely at the man's leg with one hand. Her other arm lay twisted and obviously broken at her side. A few feet in front of him, almost to the metal emergency gate, was the young woman Donnie had spent the better part of a month watching.

Her hair was still in its messy plait, but her outerwear had been replaced by a pristine white lab coat and a little plastic name plate with "New Team Member" emblazoned across it. She stood with her fists clenched at her side and an expression of abject loathing directed at the masked attacker.

"Now, now, dear, how about a smile?"

The girl spat at him. "_Va te faire foutre!_"

He cocked his head. "That's not very polite." He dug his heel harder into the woman's neck and she gurgled as her hand fell limply away.

"Fucker!" Raph jumped around the corner before Donatello could snatch him back by his scutes, and ran at the Foot with every intention of taking him out like a bulldozer.

He stopped dead in his tracks as the soldier pointed a long-barreled handgun at the girl through her iron cage. Less than ten feet from her, he couldn't have missed if he'd tried. Raphael skidded to a stop and glared, an almost mammalian growl slipping through his lips.

Donnie brought up the rear more slowly, taking in the scene in front of him.

One potential casualty, one intermediate threat, one high threat. Aggressor - unknown skill level. Status - Foot squad leader.

He deliberately avoided looking at the young technician and stepped forward.

"Who are you," he demanded.

"Ahh... Donatello," the soldier remarked with an odd degree of satisfaction. "They told me that you were the inquisitive one." He turned his attention toward the larger, red-banded brother. "And you must be the hot-headed Raphael. I've been waiting for you." The soldier turned his shoulders to face them, gun still trained on the girl in the security cage. He finally lifted his foot from the supine woman's throat.

She started breathing again in whistling gasps, though her face stayed a blotched purple. In his periphery, Donnie saw the girl's shoulders sag in relief.

One medical need, one intermediate threat, one high threat.

Raph spoke first. "The fuck you mean, 'waiting'?" His hands were clenched so hard, Donnie could hear his knuckles pop.

Something about the angle of his head, or the confident posture told Donnie that the masked soldier was smiling. "Well, I'd only heard stories of your strength and prowess, so I decided to invite you out to see for myself." His voice dropped to a tone that rang with malicious glee. "So glad you accepted my invitation."

Raph growled a string of obscenities so colorful, they would have made Mikey blush. Donatello shifted his weight and cast his eyes about the cramped space, trying to devise a way to get them all out with minimal damage. He roving gaze was arrested by a pair of eyes that stared at him with the kind of probing intensity he'd only seen from Master Splinter. She was watching them, just as she watched the Foot and Ms. Sinclaire on the ground.

The Foot was speaking again, which drew his attention back to the present danger.

"Though, I have to admit, I am disappointed."

"And why is that," asked Donatello. Keep him talking, he thought. As long as he's talking, he's not acting.

The Foot chuckled, a sound more like the rattle of a snake than any sound a man would make. "I expected this to be over much quicker," he shrugged languidly. "However, I will make an allowance for the fact that two of your team are absent."

"How generous." The dry reply had come from the girl right behind a short, humorless laugh.

"My my, what a mouth we have. Shouldn't you be more concerned with your position than my social graces?" He didn't even bother to keep his eyes on the turtles. Raphael took to opportunity to shift one sai from his belt to his hand, inverted as if to throw.

"As far as I see it," she folded her arms across her chest and cocked her hip in that sassy way that Donnie had watched her do when chatting with customers. Donatello watched her, anxiety building. "You've already made up your mind. You're either going to shoot me, or you're not. Just because you haven't chosen to share-with-the-class doesn't mean that anything I say or do can affect that decision."

The Foot soldier actually laughed then. Hearty peals that sounded like a metal file grinding down a pipe. "How very astute of you, child. It's a shame you're not _kunoichi_. I could use some recruits with a bit of fire in them. However..." He turned and looked straight at the turtles then.

"Donatello, it seems that I have lost your attention. Perhaps I should remedy this by removing your distraction?" Laurel green eyes jerked toward the soldier. He braced his _bo_ just as Raph buried his sai into the side of the gun, effectively jamming the firing mechanism.

But not before he'd unloaded half a clip into the young technician's chest.


	3. Gush

"Fuck!" Raph dove for the iron grating and lifted it with a heave. Phil collapsed behind his podium, anticipating more fire.

The Foot soldier was already gone.

Donatello just stared as the bullets ripped through her chest; trailing bright red tails as they erupted through her back. She looked at him as she fell. And somewhere in the back of his suddenly muted brain, he found it fascinating that she didn't look scared. Didn't look hurt. Just mildly surprised, as if she'd open her refrigerator and found pie when she'd been expecting cake.

Then she hit the ground and Raph was screaming.

"Donnie! What the hell do you think you're doing, man? Get the fuck over here!"

He snapped to attention and bolted forward, sliding beneath the metal grate. He jammed it open with his _bo_ staff as he went, Raph close on his tail.

The girl on the ground tried to lift her hand to her shoulder where a bouquet of vermillion flowers bloomed across her sterile white coat. Her "New Team Member" badge had been shattered by one of the rounds.

"Hey kid, don't move," commanded Raph in a low, rough voice.

She chuckled, blood splattering her lips. "Why not, Raphael?" The red-banded brother jumped in surprise at hearing his name on her lips, but she didn't seem to notice. As if she'd called him by name every day for years. "I worked in an emergency room long enough to know what's coming next."

"Shh-shh-shh," Donnie muttered soothingly. He propped her head up under a plastic bin and tried to pull her jacket back.

She swatted at his hand weakly and mumbled, "Trying to get my clothes off, Donatello? We haven't even had our first date." She flashed that crooked smile at him and something in his gut wrenched. He peeled the tattered cloth away from her shoulder without further protest.

To his immense relief, she didn't seem to be bleeding out much. The major arteries in her chest had been missed, though it was likely that a number of ribs and her scapula were shattered.

"Phil!"

The portly man rose shakily from behind his podium, staring at them with as much fear as he'd given the Foot soldiers.

"If you have anything in this place that can be used as a clotting agent and pressure bandages, I need them now!" Donnie didn't look up, but he heard the man shuffle and skitter around the pharmacy behind him.

"G-got it," he stuttered, when he came back, arms laden with a motley assortment of packages. He handed them off to Raphael; avoiding touching his hands like he had the plague. He cast his eyes down at his newest coworker.

"Are you gonna save 'er?"

Donatello pulled the shoulder of her shirt down and poured hydrogen peroxide across the wounds - four holes clear through - and didn't respond. She hissed a quick breath between her teeth and glanced at him again. He avoided her eyes.

"Raph, I'm going to need your help. When I tell you to, I need you to slide your hands under her shoulder and put pressure on the wounds. We need to stop this bleeding or she'll bleed out." Donatello could feel himself sliding into clinical mode. Precious seconds and heartbeats had slipped away in a moment of panic; but he could feel that ebbing away now, soaking into the background like the girl's blood soaked into the industrial-grade carpet.

"Phil," he said, "Why don't you go check on Ms. Sinclaire and see if there's anyone else in the store who needs help?" It was posed as a question, but the tone brooked no room for argument.

Nodding silently, the pharmacist shuffled away, barely squeezing under the gate in his haste. He was wan and pale, and he didn't look back.

"He thinks I'm going to die," the technician mumbled between clenched teeth.

Raph jumped again and opened his mouth to argue, when she laughed. The sound was gurgling and harsh.

"You know, for a giant turtle, you spook like a horse in a bed of snakes."

Raph's mouth shut with a snap and he raised an eyebrow at his brother at her cryptic turn of phrase, but the younger terrapin was in full medical mode, and nothing could distract him from his patient.

Donatello sprinkled the package of quick-clotting formula over her wounds, the tiny, artificial thrombocytes working wonders on the surface. But there was something about the wet, ragged sound of her breathing that was setting off alarm bells in his head.

He flipped his goggles down over his eyes and flipped a switch on the medical aide attached to the belts at his hip.

And swore out loud.

Raphael stared at him incredulously. The most mild-mannered of the bunch, Donatello was the last brother he'd ever expect to say anything obscene. But the string of expletives combined with the sudden scramble through his bags had Raph's nerves jumped even higher than they were before.

"Wha'? What the hell's goin' on, Donnie?"

"One of the bullets caused a pleural effusion and she's hemorrhaging into her lungs!"

"What?"

Donnie nearly shouted at his brother. "She's going to drown in her own blood long before she ever dies of blood loss!"

From the bottom of a bag, he withdrew a length of plastic tubing and a short metal shunt that looked like a sharpened wine aerator. With careful, probing fingers, he found the wound that most likely nicked her right lung, and finally met her eyes.

He was suddenly struck that for the first time, he was seeing her in full color. Her hair was a deep nutty brown, frizzed out and matted with blood that was slowly congealing. Skin paler than it should have been, except for the high flush points across her cheekbones. Eyes that had seemed so dark from afar were closer to the color of a raw emerald, with narrow golden sunbursts at their center. His stomach flipped when she suddenly coughed and splattered fresh blood across the back of his hand. When she opened her eyes again, she looked almost apologetic.

"How bad is it, doc?" Her voice was rough, but there was the faintest drawl towards the end of her words. The tone was something like the old, worn leather of his armor straps - warm, supple and comfortable. Later, when he wasn't trying to perform an emergency thoracic surgery without any aseptic procedure or real tools, he'd go over the sound and the way her lips shaped all her previous words, wrought with dire humor, with the tenacious detail of a scanning electron microscope. But for now, he filed the observation away under "Idiosyncrasies" and pushed it aside.

His mouth set in a grim line. "You're bleeding internally. I've got to siphon some of the blood out of your lungs, or you're going to choke." He paused, waiting for the panic, but her gaze was steady.

"So what do I need to do?"

"Try not to move."

She gave the barest of nods and he turned his attention toward his brother, who was watching the conversation in wary silence.

'Raph, stick your hands out."

Donnie soaked his brother's hands, and his jury-rigged tools, in the remaining peroxide before wrapping Raph's hands in layer-upon-layer of gauze. He was trying to form something like a cross between sterile gloves and a pressure pad.

"Okay, now I need you to press down on the front and back of her shoulder to slow the bleeding from the other sites and hold her steady." Raph nodded and slid one large hand under her shoulder, eliciting a gurgling hiss from their patient.

"Easy boys, no need to manhandle me."

He caught her eyes again. "I've never performed a thoracentesis before. I have no anesthetic and I don't know enough about the painkillers that are here to help you. It's going to hurt-"

"-like a motha' fucker," Raph interjected.

"I'm a big girl. I can handle it." There was a steely resolve in her eyes, a determination not to just roll over and die. To his surprise, he thought he could also see a small measure of trust. Though it could have been borne from having no other option.

"I'm going to ask you questions during the procedure. I want you to stay conscious. Right now, you're the only one who can gauge how you're doing."

She nodded again. "Just get it over with, already."

Donnie grunted uncharacteristically. "Going in. Raph, hold her tight."

He slid the slip of metal through the bullet wound, eliciting a whining groan from the girl.

"So what's your name, kid?" Raphael started the conversation, allowing Donnie to focus on finding the right spot in the wound.

He could feel the narrow, tattered gash on the lateral side of the right lung, just between the ribs, below the once-navy band of her bra.

She gritted her teeth so tightly Raph could hear them creak, but she managed a short, breathy answer.

"Aubrey."

"Weird name."

She glared. "You're one to talk."

Raph grunted but cracked a smile. "Where ya from, Aub," he queried, arbitrarily deciding to shorten her name. "No one 'round here's gotta accent like that."

She chuckled and then grimaced. The metal tip had found it's way through the gash and Donatello was trying to attach the tubing without jarring her too much.

"Lincoln Parish, in Louisiana."

"So out in th' boonies?"

"You could say that."

"What brought you to New York?" It was Donnie's turn. He tried to ignore that he was asking the questions he'd wondered about for weeks at what might be his last opportunity to ask them at all. His hands were soaked in fresh, warm blood.

Her eyes shifted from the red turtle to the violet one.

"Was going to school at LSU-" she wheezed as the tube finally slid home, and Donnie thought she might faint. Instead, she continued.

"They didn't have a ge-genetics program," she stuttered, "and I couldn't afford out-of-state tuition."

"So you put your education on hold?" He glanced up and was alarmed to see her shaking.

"Yep. Got a tech license and moved. Gonna be a bonafide resident." Aubrey's voice had become low and husky and her eyes glazed. Her breaths came in increasingly shallow pants, but she held his eyes until he looked away.

"I don't know if this will hurt-"

"Do it."

Gently, he put his mouth to the other end of the tube and sucked. Blood slid up in a thick, inky-red line until it reached his lips. Donnie detached his mouth at the last second and Aubrey's blood came dribbling out like a leaking faucet.

After a moment, she took a deep breath, but her shaking had grown worse, with gooseflesh creeping up her arms. Her eyes had slipped shut.

The sour tang of panic rose in his throat. He flipped his goggles down again and felt the bile rise into his mouth. Her heart was racing but her blood pressure was much too low. She was going into hypovolaemic shock.

This wasn't like the field triage he performed on his brothers, where the worst they usually experienced was cracked shells and stitches. This strangely strong and fragile girl was dying. She'd lost too much blood and her whole body was starting to fail, and without any blood to give back to her, or any way to stem the flow, there was nothing they could do to save her.

He sat back and placed his shaking fists on his thighs.

Raph stared at him, alarmed. "Donnie, what're you doing? Ya can't just stop!"

"She's dead, Raph."

"No she ain't! She's layin' right there, breathin'. I can feel her heart beatin'-"

"She doesn't have enough blood, Raph!" Donatello could feel his stress rising to the breaking point. His voice was raising higher as he spoke. "She lost too much blood. We don't have any here to give her. She's already passed out, and in just a few more minutes she's going to be _dead_." He groaned and flipped his goggles back up on his head, staring at his hands, where the blood was beginning to dry and flake. "She doesn't have any mutagen in her system like we do. She can't heal quick enough to save her." Donnie's voice had grown soft and despondent.

Raph was quiet for a heartbeat before he jerked his hands out from under her.

"Fuck that bullshit!"

Raphael ripped the makeshift gloves from his hands and with a flash of hidden steel, had sliced a gash across both palms deep enough to gush. Before Donatello could stop him, he'd already wrenched the tubing viciously from her chest and pressed a hand to either side of her bloodied shoulder. He squeezed his palms, forcing out as much of his own life force as he could.

"If she needs some mutagen, we'll give her some goddamn mutagen."

Donatello didn't stop him. Her short, panting breaths had ceased, her heart still. She was gone. Instead, he stood slowly and turned his back towards the corpse. All around him, he could smell antiseptic, peroxide and blood. Her blood, all over him.

They'd come across bodies before - products of the violence that was present in every huge city in the world. Most of the time, they just left them where they were and followed the traces to the murderer. But they'd never been there when the corpse was made; when the victim, who had a life and dreams and a future cut short, became another nameless body. Another coin in the grave-diggers pocket.

He heard Raphael shift, cursing, and ease on to his feet. When he glanced back, he'd draped her lab coat over her face. A final tribute to the dead.

Against his will, Donnie cursed again. "Dammit."

Raph sidled up beside him and laid an equally bloodied hand on his shoulder.

"Hey man, you did all you could."

Donatello clenched his fists, tasting failure on his tongue like he'd swallowed a sharpened blade. "But it wasn't enough. She died anyway."

Raphael's brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to respond, only to be interrupted by a whistling gasp. They turned as one toward where the young technician lay in her bloodied veil.

"There's no way-" Donatello choked on his words as he saw another quick rise and fall of the jacket. "It's gotta be some kind of post-mortem twitch, or something."

He crouched down and carefully peeled back the lab coat. He place two broad fingers against the pulse point along the jugular and nearly reeled when he felt a faint, fluttering beat. He didn't trust his voice.

"Donnie?"

Without responding, he gently lifted the Aubrey from the ground and sprinted through the wreckage of the store, Raphael hot on his heels.


End file.
